


everything's coming up aces

by DrowningInStarlight



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Canon Asexual Character, F/F, Fluff, Gen, and some non canon ones too, platonic i love yous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21871516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrowningInStarlight/pseuds/DrowningInStarlight
Summary: What if Martin worked in the coffee shop near Jon and Georgie's campus? What if the powers never even got a look in?Or, an exploration of visibility, friendship, and cats.
Relationships: Georgie Barker & Martin Blackwood & Jonathan Sims, Georgie Barker/Melanie King
Comments: 21
Kudos: 97
Collections: Cowards Holiday Exchange 2019





	everything's coming up aces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mae-mil (maevemil)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maevemil/gifts).



> written for the cowards holiday exchange, happy holidays maeve!!! hope you enjoy this!!

It was the ace badge that caught Jon’s attention. 

He’d never really paid much attention to the little coffee shop just off the edge of campus, it just happened to be a convenient distance between uni and the flat he shared with Georgie. He often ended up stopping by after a long day, or during an early morning. It was small, but always bustling, and every single time the server wrote his name as Don, which had led to an undue amount of awkwardness before Jon had cottoned on to it. 

It wasn’t the Don guy standing behind the counter this time, though. It was a guy Jon hadn’t seen before, standing behind the counter with an air of nervous helpfulness. He was tall, his curly hair disheveled from being pushed out of his eyes. He had three badges on his lanyard, two of them little waving ghosts, like something Georgie would wear, the third the familiar purple, black, grey and white stripes. 

“—can I help you?” 

Jon blinked, trying to shift gears into human interaction mode. The thing was, he’d known he was asexual since he was fifteen, when he abruptly realised that all his peers were interested in sex and he just _wasn’t._ But it was only when he met Georgie that he actually told anyone about it. And it was only when he met Georgie that he’d begun to realise that oh, perhaps he was somewhere on the aromantic spectrum too. 

“Is she your girlfriend?” people would ask, or they’d just assume: “Hope you and your girlfriend enjoy the meal,” or “Enjoy your date.” 

Jon loved Georgie. Of course he did, she was his best friend. If he had to date someone, it probably would be her. But that was exactly it. He always thought about it in terms of _oh, if I really had too. If I was forced to choose._ He hadn’t really realised that wasn’t a normal thing to do until he’d mentioned it to Georgie and she’d said “Oh, I didn’t realise you were aro!” 

It wasn’t that he was confused, or insecure in who he was. It was just that he wasn’t used to seeing people like him, and being able to think _oh, they’re like me._

So here he was, staring at a stranger’s ace flag pin in a coffee shop on his way home from classes. The guy had obviously clocked him staring, and Jon realised too late he’d been giving Jon a smile, a little more cautious and questioning than the smiles he’d been giving the other customers. Before Jon could do anything about returning it though, the guy looked away, coughed and asked again, “Can I get you anything?” 

“Oh, um, yes-- sorry, busy day. Can I get a caramel latte and an americano for Jon please?” 

“No worries, I’ll grab them for you now.” 

“Thank you.” 

The guy looked a little awkward as he turned to make the drinks, and Jon hovered stiffly, sinking as far into the background as he could. He was sure Georgie was going to laugh at him when he got home. 

After a minute, the guy called “Americano and caramel latte for Jon?” and Jon went up to the counter to grab them. They actually did have Jon written on them, he noticed. 

“You know, this is the first time I’ve ever been called by my actual name here,” he said, trying to make conversation, because this coffee shop really is convenient and he doesn’t want to be too mortified to come back. “The other guy always calls me Don.” 

“Oh, Michael! Don’t worry, he does it to everyone,” the guy responded, seeming a little surprised at being spoken too so civilly. Jon winced at the knowledge that he’d probably been pigeonholed as _rude customer._ “I think he likes the chaos or something? He always calls me Marcus, even though I’ve told him a bunch of times my name is Martin.” 

Jon laughed dryly. “I’m in good company, then.” 

“If that’s what you’d call it,” the guy— Martin— replied. Jon picked up the coffee, and almost turned to leave. But— 

“I like your badge,” he blurted, at the last second. “The— the ace one.” 

“Oh! Thank you,” Martin said, looking almost sheepish. “It’s nice to be visible, right?” 

“Oh,” Jon said “Yes, perhaps it is. Nice to see other people… like me.” 

Martin smiled. The woman standing behind Jon coughed pointedly, and Jon hastily grabbed the coffee cups from the counter. “Sorry, I’m holding up the queue,” he said, and turned to go. 

“Nice to meet you, Jon,” Martin called after him as he reached the door. Jon nodded back, trying not to catch the eyes of everyone else waiting. So much for not embarrassing himself. Georgie was going to laugh at him _so much._

——

“Jon!” 

Jon opened half an eye, putting his hand up onto his chest to clutch at the Admiral, who made a soft _murrp_ of protest. 

“Jon, wake up,” Georgie said, woolly scarf flying, heralded by a gust of chilly autumn air as she burst into the living room.

“Not asleep,” Jon mumbled. “What is it?” 

“I met your coffee shop guy!” 

“My coffee shop guy?” 

“The one who had the ace pin.” 

“Oh, um— Martin?” 

“That’s the one. I told him you’d told me about him and he went super red. Seemed to think he’d embarrassed himself. I know you said the conversation was awkward, Jon, but Christ.” 

“You’d have laughed at me.” 

Georgie patted the Admiral’s head, then ruffled Jon’s hair on her way past. “Probably. Oh, I got his number, too.” 

He gave her a look of surprise. “I thought you… Melanie…” 

“No, not like _that,”_ she said, pausing in the doorway to the kitchen. “I’ve invited him to be on the podcast. Do you want a drink?” 

“I love you,” Jon said, because he did.

—— 

To say that Martin hadn’t made many friends here since he moved was, perhaps, an understatement. He’d tried, he really had, and everyone was perfectly nice but he was busy a lot with work and it just… hadn’t felt important. He knew he was lonely, but he’d always been lonely, and at least since he moved here, he could be lonely without his mother’s unsympathetic gaze on him. He was prepared to accept it, in exchange for that freedom.

He liked talking to the customers at the coffee shop, though. The regulars, whom he remembered because he didn’t exactly have anything better to do. It was students, mostly, people his own age, and he always felt a pang, _in another life I’d be in your place,_ but he did his best to put it aside. After all, if he had had the opportunity maybe he wouldn’t even have gone to uni, or maybe he would have hated it, or maybe it would have been just as lonely on the inside as on the outside looking in. So he took a deep breath, and smiled at the customers. 

He had nice conversations, sometimes. Awkward, but… nice. Although the conversation he’d had yesterday with this one woman hadn’t been awkward at all, at least not on her end. She’d smiled back at him cheerfully, ordered an americano and a caramel latte, and asked him about his ghost pins. By the time her drinks were ready, he had her phone number, an invitation to be on her podcast, and advice to _ignore Jon’s awkwardness, he doesn’t mean it._

Martin reckoned he was going to like Georgie Barker. Reckoned he was going to like the both of them. 

—— 

Four months later, Martin knocked on the door of Jon and Georgie’s flat. He’d been over enough times by now to navigate their rickety old building, and to know to pay no attention to the door numbers because Tim, the guy who lived opposite, swapped them occasionally to wind Jon up. Martin had never caught him in the act, but Sasha, Tim’s flatmate, popped out sometimes if she heard him go by to drop him a warning. It was nice. He felt strangely included in the chaos of the floor, effortlessly folded into the little theatre of the mundane. It still took him by surprise, sometimes, but he liked it. He liked it _so much._

He’d barely knocked once when the door was flung open, and Jon stood there, wildeyed. He thrust the Admiral into Martin’s arms. “Shhh,” he said, peering over Martin’s shoulder. 

“Is everything okay?” Martin asked, startled, accepting the sudden armful of cat automatically.

Georgie appeared behind Jon, looking almost as disheveled as he did. “The landlord’s coming over,” she explained, “He didn’t give us any warning this time, we think he _suspects.”_

“Oh, you’re not supposed to have the Admiral, are you?” Martin guessed. 

Jon looked away sheepishly. “No?” 

“So what’s your plan?” 

“We need you to take him over to Daisy and Basira’s, just for a little bit,” Georgie said. “According to them, Mr Bouchard hasn’t contacted them about inspecting their flat, and it’s three floors away from ours. Tim and Sasha offered, they haven’t been contacted either, but it’s so close, if he was noisy…” 

The Admiral began to purr, held close against Martin’s chest. They all stopped to look at him. 

“I’ll take him now,” Martin said. “No problem. Good luck with the landlord.” 

Jon leant over and gave the Admiral a pat on the head. After hesitating for a moment, he expanded the gesture into an awkward little half hug around Martin’s shoulder. Martin couldn’t decide who was more endearing, the cat or Jon. “We’ll be fine,” he reassured them both. “Go on, now.” 

“Thanks, Martin,” Georgie told him, pulling Jon in. “Let’s go and blow Mr Bouchard away with our complete lack of cat.” 

—— 

“So,” Melanie said, sprawled on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. “As you’re demi, Georgie, Jon’s aroace and Martin’s ace, does that mean. Does that mean it falls to me to seduce any ghosts we meet?” 

Georgie waved the question on to Martin. He laughed. “No, I’d be down for seducing a ghost. In theory, at least, dunno how charmed the ghost would be, really.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Martin,” Melanie said. “The ghosts would love you, you’re just so— so—” she made a gesture, vaguely reminiscent of pinching someone’s cheeks. 

“Thank you?” 

Jon came back in the room, and handed Melanie a glass of water. It was the first anniversary of What the Ghost? so celebrations had been had. “I would not under any circumstances seduce, or even befriend, a ghost,” he said dryly. “Ghosts do not exist.” 

“You don’t exist,” Melanie told him good naturedly. Normally, it was impossible to stop the two of them from bickering, but Martin knew they were giving it a rest because it was Georgie’s night, and they both adored her. 

“I’d _interview_ a ghost,” Georgie said. “Damn, I really want to interview a ghost. It’d be hilarious, like, What the Ghost? This the ghost! We got ‘em!” 

Jon laughed, and the sound took Martin by surprise and made him laugh too. 

“I’m so glad you guys are here to celebrate this with me,” Georgie said. “Honestly? Life wouldn’t be the same without you.” 

Melanie sat up to kiss her on the cheek, and Jon smiled softly. 

“Happy spooky one year,” Martin told her. “May the Admiral stop crashing recording sessions when you’re trying to build the tension this year.” 

Jon snorted. “That’s likely.” 

“And if it’s not the Admiral, it’s one of you lot,” Georgie teased. “So unprofessional.” 

“Yep, that’s us,” Melanie said. “Happy one year.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr as drowninginstarlights, or twitter @seetherowangrow!


End file.
